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THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM
So convinced were we that they were really cavalry that, at the
next halt, one of the offi cers took a party of men out to reconnoitre,
and found no one there. The night then grew darker, and we saw
no more.
The same phenomenon was seen by many men in our column.
Of course, we were all dog-tired and overtaxed, but it is an extraordinary thing that the same phenomenon should be witnessed by so
many people.
I myself am absolutely convinced that I saw these horsemen; and
I feel sure that they did not exist only in my imagination. I do not
attempt to explain the mystery-I only state facts.
This evidence sounds good, and yet it must be admitted that in
the stress and tension of the great retreat men’s minds were not in
the best condition to weigh evidence. On the other hand, it is at
such times of hardship that the psychic powers of man are usually
most alive.
A profound aspect of the World War is involved in the consideration that the war on earth is but one aspect of unseen battles on
higher planes where the powers of Good and Evil are engaged. The
late Mr. A. P. Sinnett, a prominent Theosophist, deals with this question in an article entitled “Super-Physical Aspects of the War.”
We cannot enter into the subject here, except to say that there
are evidences from many sources to indicate that what Mr. Sinnett
speaks of has a basis of fact.
A considerable number of books, and a very much larger number of manuscripts, record the alleged experiences of those who
passed over in the war, which differ, of course, in no way from those
who pass over at any other time, but are rendered more dramatic by
the historical occasion. The greatest of these books is “Raymond.”
Sir Oliver Lodge is so famous a scientist and so profound a thinker
that his brave and frank avowal produced a great impression upon
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
the public. The book appeared later in a condensed form, and it is
likely to remain for many years a classic of the subject. Other books
of the same class, all of them corroborative in their main details,
are “The Case of Lester Coltman,” “Claude’s Book,” “Rupert Lives,”
“Grenadier Rolf,” “Private Dowding,” and others. All of them depict
the sort of after-life existence which is described in a subsequent
chapter.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT
OF SPIRITUALISM
Spiritualism is a system of thought and knowledge which can
be reconciled with any religion. The basic facts are the continuity
of personality and the power of communication after death. These
two basic facts are of as great importance to a Brahmin, a Mohammedan, or a Parsee as to a Christian. Therefore Spiritualism makes
a universal appeal. There is only one school of thought to which it
is absolutely irreconcilable: that is the school of materialism, which
holds the world in its grip at present and is the root cause of all our
misfortunes. Therefore the comprehension and acceptance of Spiritualism are essential things for the salvation of mankind, which is
otherwise destined to descend lower and lower into a purely utilitarian and selfi sh view of the universe. The typical materialistic state
was prewar Germany, but every other modern state is of the same
type if not of the same degree.
It may be asked, why should not the old religions be strong
enough to rescue the world from its spiritual degradation? The answer is that they have all been tried and all have failed. The Churches which represent them have themselves become to the last degree
formal and worldly and material. They have lost all contact with the
living facts of the spirit, and are content to refer everything back to
ancient days, and to pay a lip service and an external reverence to
an outworn system which has been so tangled up with incredible
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
theologies that the honest mind is nauseated at the thought of it.
No class has shown itself so sceptical and incredulous of modern
Spiritual manifestations as those very clergy who profess complete
belief in similar occurrences in bygone ages, and their utter refusal
to accept them now is a measure of the sincerity of their professions.
Faith has been abused until it has become impossible to many earnest minds, and there is a call for proof and for knowledge. It is this
which Spiritualism supplies. It founds our belief in life after death
and in the existence of invisible worlds, not upon ancient tradition
or upon vague intuitions, but upon proven facts, so that a science of
religion may be built up, and man given a sure pathway amid the
quagmire of the creeds.
When one asserts that Spiritualism may be reconciled with any
religion, one does not mean that all religions are of the same value, or
that the teaching of Spiritualism alone may not be better than Spiritualism mixed with any other creed. Personally, the author thinks
that Spiritualism alone supplies all that man needs, but he has found
many men of high soul who have been unable to cast off the convictions of a lifetime, and yet have been able to accept the new truth
without discarding the old belief. But if a man had Spiritualism alone
as his guide, he would not fi nd himself in a position which was opposed to essential Christianity, but rather in one which was explanatory. Both systems preach life after death. Both recognize that the
after-life is infl uenced in its progress and happiness by conduct here.
Both profess to believe in the existence of a world of spirits, good and
evil, whom the Christian calls angels and devils, and the Spiritualist
guides, controls, and undeveloped spirits.
Both believe in the main that the same virtues, unselfi shness,
kindness, purity, and honesty, are necessary for a high character.
Bigotry, however, is looked upon as a serious offence by Spiritualists,
while it is commended by most Christian sects. To Spiritualists every
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THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM
path upwards is commendable, and they fully recognize that in all
creeds there are sainted, highly developed souls who have received
by intuition all that the Spiritualist can give by special knowledge.
The mission of the Spiritualist does not lie with these. His mission
lies with those who openly declare themselves to be agnostic, or
those more dangerous ones who profess some form of creed and yet
are either thoughtless or agnostic at heart.
From the author’s point of view the man who has received the
full benefi t of the new revelation is the man who has earnestly tried
the gamut of the creeds and has found them all equally wanting.
He then fi nds himself in a valley of gloom with Death waiting at
the end, and nothing but plain, obvious duty as his acting religion.
Such a condition produces many fi ne men of the Stoic breed, but
it is not conducive to personal happiness. Then comes the positive
proof of independent existence, sometimes suddenly, sometimes by
slow conviction. The cloud has gone from the end of his prospect.
He is no longer in a valley but upon the ridge beyond, with a vista of
successive ridges each more beautiful than the last in front of him.
All is brightness where once gloom girt him round. The day of this
revelation has become the crowning day of his life.
Looking up at the lofty hierarchy of spiritual beings above him,
the Spiritualist realizes that one or another great archangel may from
time to time visit mankind with some mission of teaching and hope.
Even humble Katie King, with her message of immortality given to
a great scientist, was an angel from on high. Francis d’Assisi, Joan of
Arc, Luther, Mahomet, Bab-ed-Din, and every real religious leader
of history are among these evangels. But above all, according to our
Western judgment, was Jesus the son of a Jewish artisan, Whom we
call “The Christ.” It is not for our mosquito brains to say what degree
of divinity was in Him, but we can truly say that He was certainly
nearer the Divine than we are, and that His teaching, upon which
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
the world has not yet acted, is the most unselfi sh, merciful, and beautiful of which we have any cognizance, unless it be that of his fellow
saint Buddha, who also was a messenger from God, but whose creed
was rather for the Oriental than for the European mind.
When, however, we hark back to the message of our inspired
Teacher, we fi nd that there is little relation between His precepts
and the dogmas or actions of His present-day disciples. We see also
that a great deal of what He taught has obviously been lost, and
that to fi nd this lost portion, which was unexpressed in the Gospels, we have to examine the practice of the early Church who were
guided by those who had been in immediate touch with Him. Such
an examination shows that all which we call Modern Spiritualism
seems to have been familiar to the Christ circle, that the gifts of the
spirit extolled by St. Paul are exactly those gifts which our mediums exhibit, and that those wonders which brought a conviction of
other-world reality to the folk of those days can now be exhibited
and should have a similar effect now, when men once again ask for
assurance upon this vital matter. This subject is treated at large in
other books, and can here be simply summed up by saying that, far
from having wandered from orthodoxy, there is good reason to believe that the humble, undogmatic Spiritualist, with his direct spirit
message, his communion of saints, and his association with that
high teaching which has been called the Holy Ghost, is nearer to
primitive Christianity than any other existing sect.
It is quite amazing when we read the early documents of the
Church, and especially the writings of the so-called “Fathers,” to
fi nd out the psychic knowledge and the psychic practice which were
in vogue in those days. The early Christians lived in close and familiar touch with the unseen, and their absolute faith and constancy
were founded upon the positive personal knowledge which each
of them had acquired. They were aware, not as a speculation but
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THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM
as an absolute fact, that death meant no more than a translation
to a wider life, and might more properly be called birth. Therefore
they feared it not at all, and regarded it rather as Dr. Hodgson did
when he cried, “Oh, I can hardly bear to wait!” Such an attitude did
not affect their industry and value in this world, which have been
attested even by their enemies. If converts in far-off lands have in
these days been shown to deteriorate when they become Christians,
it is because the Christianity which they have embraced has lost all
the direct compelling power which existed of old.
Apart from the early Fathers, we have evidence of early Christian sentiment in the inscriptions of the Catacombs. An interesting
book on early Christian remains in Rome, by the Rev. Spence Jones,
Dean of Gloucester, deals in part with these strange and pathetic
records. These inscriptions have the advantage over all our documentary evidence that they have certainly not been forged, and that
there has been no possibility of interpolation.
Dr. Jones, after having read many hundreds of them, says: “The
early Christians speak of the dead as though they were still living.
They talk to their dead.” That is the point of view of the present-day
Spiritualists-one which the Churches have so long lost. The early
Christian graves present a strange contrast to those of the heathen
which surround them. The latter always refer to death as a fi nal, terrible and irrevocable thing. “FuistI Vale” sums up their sentiment.
The Christians, on the other hand, dwelt always upon the happy
continuance of life. “Agape, thou shalt live for ever,” “Victorina is in
peace and in Christ,” “May God refresh thy spirit,” “Mayest thou live
in God.” These inscriptions alone are enough to show that a new
and infi nitely consoling view of death had come to the human race.
The Catacombs, also, it may be remarked, are a proof of the simplicity of early Christianity before it became barnacled over with all
sorts of complex defi nitions and abstractions, which sprang from
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
the Grecian or Byzantine mind, and have caused infi nite evil in the
world. The one symbol which predominates in the Catacombs is
that of the Good Shepherd-the tender idea of a man carrying a poor
helpless lamb. One may search the Catacombs of the fi rst centuries, and in all those thousands of devices you will fi nd nothing of
a blood sacrifi ce, nothing of a virgin birth. You will fi nd the Kind
Shepherd, the anchor of hope, the palm of the martyr, and the fi sh
which was the pun or rebus upon the name of Jesus. Everything
points to a simple religion. Christianity was at its best when it was
in the hands of the humblest. It was the rich, the powerful, and the
learned who degraded, complicated, and ruined it.
It is not possible, however, to draw any psychic inferences from
the inscriptions or drawings in the Catacombs. For these we must
turn to the pre-Nicene Fathers, and there we fi nd so many references that a small book which would contain nothing else might
easily be compiled. We have, however, to tune-in our thoughts and
phrases to theirs in order to get the full meaning. Prophecy, for example, we now call mediumship, and an Angel has become a high
spirit or a Guide. Let us take a few typical quotations at random.
Saint Augustine, in his “De cura pro Mortuis,” says: “The spirits
of the dead can be sent to the living and can unveil to them the future which they them selves have learned either from other spirits
or from angels” (i.e. spiritual guides) “or by divine revelation.” This
is pure Spiritualism exactly as we know and defi ne it. Augustine
would not have spoken so surely of it and with such an accuracy of
defi nition if he had not been quite familiar with it. There is no hint
of its being illicit.
He comes back to the subject in his “The City of God,” where he
refers to practices which enable the ethereal body of a person to communicate with the spirits and higher guides and to receive visions.
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THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM
These persons were, of course, mediums-the name simply meaning
the intermediate between the carnate and discarnate organism.
Saint Clement of Alexandria makes similar allusions, and so
does Saint Jerome in his controversy with Vigilantius the Gaul. This,
however, is, of course, at a later date-after the Council of Nicaea.
Hermas, a somewhat shadowy person, who was said to have
been a friend of St. Paul’s, and to have been the direct disciple of
the Apostles, is credited with being the author of a book “The Pastor.” Whether this authorship is apocryphal or not, the book is certainly written by someone in the early centuries of Christianity, and
it therefore represents the ideas which then prevailed. He says: “The
spirit does not answer all who question nor any particular person,
for the spirit that comes from God does not speak to man when man
wills but when God permits. Therefore, when a man who has a spirit from God” (i.e. a control) “comes into an assembly of the faithful, and when prayer has been offered, the spirit fi lls this man who
speaks as God wills.”
This exactly describes our own psychic experience, when seances are properly conducted. We do not invoke spirits, as ignorant
critics continually assert, and we do not know what is coming. But
we pray-using the “Our Father,” as a rule-and we await events. Then
such spirit as is chosen and permitted comes to us and speaks or
writes through the medium. Hermas, like Augustine, would not
have spoken so accurately had he not had personal experience of
the procedure.
Origen has many allusions to psychic knowledge. It is curious to
compare the crass ignorance of our present spiritual chiefs with the
wisdom of the ancients. Very many quotations could be given, but
a short one may be taken from his controversy with Celsus.
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Many people have embraced the Christian faith in spite of themselves, their hearts having been suddenly changed by some spirit,
either in an apparition or in a dream.
In exactly this way leaders among the materialists, from Dr. Elliotson onwards, have been brought back to a belief in the life to
come and its relation to this life by the study of psychic evidence.
It is the earlier Fathers who are the most defi nite upon this matter, for they were nearer to the great psychic source. Thus Irenams
and Tertullian, who lived about the end of the second century,
are full of allusions to psychic signs, while Eusebius, writing later,
mourns their scarcity and complains that the Church had become
unworthy of them.
Irenaeus wrote: “We hear of many brethren in the Church possessing prophetic” (i.e. mediumistic) “gifts, and speaking through
the spirit in all kinds of tongues and bringing to light for the general advantage the hidden things of men, and setting forth the mysteries of God.” No passage could better describe the functions of
a high-class medium.
When Tertullian had his great controversy with Marcion, he
made the Spiritualistic gifts the test of truth between the two parties.
He claimed that these were forthcoming in greater profusion upon
his own side, and includes among them trance-utterance, prophecy, and revelation of secret things. Thus the things, which are now
sneered at or condemned by so many clergymen, were in the year
200 the actual touchstones of Christianity. Tertullian also in his de
anima says: “We have to-day among us a sister who has received gifts
on the nature of revelations which she undergoes in spirit in the
church amid the rites of the Lord’s Day, falling into ecstasy. She converses with angels”-that is, high spirits-”sees and hears mysteries,
and reads the hearts of certain people and brings healings to those
who ask. ‘Among other things,’ she said, ‘a soul was shown to me in
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